


Comes My Way

by Rubynye



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, F/M, First Kiss, M/M, Making Up, Missing Scene, Multi, Multiple Relationships, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 21:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2041743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I came to apologize," Steve says to Peggy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comes My Way

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://caitri.livejournal.com/profile)[**caitri**](http://caitri.livejournal.com/) , [](http://azephirin.livejournal.com/profile)[**azephirin**](http://azephirin.livejournal.com/) , and [](http://dsudis.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://dsudis.livejournal.com/)**dsudis** for brainstorming and advice, and to Beccabuchanans and AmericaChavez for inspirational meta ([one](http://americachavez.tumblr.com/post/91273056743/can-you-kind-of-explain-that-steve-meta-you-just), [two](http://beccabuchanans.tumblr.com/post/90876911144/i-used-to-really-hate-the-scene-in-ca-tfa-where), [three](http://beccabuchanans.tumblr.com/post/90850973059/shardsofblu-you-think-you-are-so-smart-steve).)
> 
> Title from [ "The Man I Love"](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/billieholiday/themanilove.html)

 

What a day, ah, what a day. Peggy strides towards her quarters, barely keeping to the dignified side of a stomp as she clacks past rooms filled with sleeping secretaries and nurses, wanting nothing more than to shut the flimsy door behind her and bury her face and her disappointment in the thin pillows like a brokenhearted schoolgirl. She had believed he was different, she had _actually had faith_ for once and so of course --

\-- so of course Steve -- _Captain Rogers_ \-- stands at attention by her door, as still as if carved there, the weak bulb above casting him in sculptural relief. He's a handsome sight and a rattling shock; her heart swells with instinctive sympathy until she pushes it away into a burst of fury, into maintaining her momentum rather than turning on her heel to take flight. Agent Carter doesn't back down from challenges, Peggy reminds herself as she strides up to Steve and faces him expectantly. "Is there anything I can help you with, Captain?"

A wince sweeps his face, eyelids crinkling, eyebrows pulling together, but he maintains his ramrod-straight stance. "Agent Carter," he asks softly, neutrally, "May I come in?"

Peggy flicks a glance down the hall, checking for witnesses, finding none. She could say no. Steve stands to attention before her, hands loose at his sides, poised and ready but not, she judges, for battle… though she might have judged wrongly before.

Once again, Steve inspires her to take the chance. Nodding curtly, she steps past to unlock her door and walks in as if she's not precisely aware of him tall and strong behind her, of the finality in the latch's click. As she flicks on the lamp she glances over her little room, cot and chest and uniforms hung from the wall bracket; she steals a moment's breath, folds her arms, and turns to face him again, six feet and the whole long day between them.

"I, um," Steve stumbles at the start, and swallows hard, and Peggy does not watch the bob in his columnar throat. "We'll head out soon, and I didn't want to leave…" _With me still angry with you,_ Peggy fills in, clenching her fist beneath her elbow, thinking of how men cannot stand to be in the wrong. Right up until Steve continues, "Without having apologized to you," and actually surprises her, all the more with his clear eyes and steady, undemanding gaze.

"What for?" she blurts, and has to clamp down on her own wince.

"I found out what fondue is," Steve blurts in answer, and color rises in his cheeks. "I mean, I was wrong about it, so I want to apologize for it, and for kissing Private Lorraine."

The image flashes through her mind, Steve cradling Lorraine's waist in his wide hands, her arms rising up round his neck where Peggy would love to drape hers, and she presses her nails into her palm and pushes the jealousy away in favor of a more pertinent question. "So you realize I'm not here to be involved with Stark?" Steve's eyes widen at the question, round and seemingly guileless, and Peggy has to fight herself not to forgive him, to make herself state baldly, "That I didn't trade on dalliances to make my career?" Steve's mouth falls open, and she stops to let him speak, but he just gulps like a landed fish and stares at her with those huge blue eyes until she can no longer restrain a bitter murmur. "I thought you understood what it's like to be pushed aside, to be disregarded."

Steve finds his voice then, stammering, "I do, of course I do."

"Do you?" Peggy can't keep her eyes on his earnest face, she looks down at her white blouse, at her booted toes. "Have you already forgotten?"

Steve draws a noisy harsh breath, and Peggy shuts her eyes, bracing for another round of that stupid, stupid argument. But what Steve says instead is, "Oh, Peggy, God, I'm sorry." She looks up and finds him offering his empty hands, truth and anguish shining off him like a lighthouse. "I could kick myself for making you think I meant that. I never thought you were here as anyone's doll, never. You're a soldier, and a damn good one."

Between one breath and the next, Peggy's anger melts like snow in springtime. It would take a much stronger woman not to be touched by such praise, the jagged hurt inside her healing over, its edges melting back together in Steve's warmth. "I'm glad you don't think that of me." Smiling helplessly, she unfolds her arms and steps forward to lay her hand in his, and her fingers seemingly tingle at the connection. "Thank you, Steve. I accept your apology."

Steve smiles, but uncertainly, and doesn't fold his hand around hers, clearly keeping from restraining her. "Are you sore I kissed Private Lorraine?" Another surprise; Peggy would have thought he'd have been eager to consider himself fully exonerated, but perhaps he really is as singular as she first found him. It's her turn to goggle openmouthed, as Steve continues, sweetly implacable, "You weren't happy with me for it. I need to make right everything I did wrong."

Staring at him, she sees he means it indeed, so truly it shakes her. Peggy gasps, "Oh, Steve," as she grasps his hands with both of hers, as much to steady herself as anything else. "I -- " she should put away her jealousy, should tell a soothing white lie, but the very thought of being dishonest with him sticks sideways in her throat. "It's just that -- of all the Americans I've met since this confounded war began, you're the only one I've never seen leer at a woman. Even Phillips occasionally gives the nurses the eye when he thinks no one's looking." Steve makes an appalled face that pulls her up short with a laugh.

Then he glances down, hiding his thoughts behind his long eyelashes, and when he looks back up at Peggy his eyes crinkle, a coy little curve of cheek edging his smile. "I'm not a masher," he says, "but I'm not a saint, and I was an artist." He opens his hands beneath hers, as if cradling an invisible artbook. "I do look."

"Of course." Remembering his deft sketches, his self-mocking little drawing of a performing monkey, Peggy concedes a nod. "I don't fault you for it," she says slowly, trying to weave words together around her thoughts. "But… people won't push you aside anymore, you realize." He blinks, and she would sigh exasperation but now she believes his apparent surprise. "You should think about whom you let pull you in."

Steve gets as far as, "But I'm the same…" before he looks down at her hands enfolded in the breadth of his, down at his broad chest and his height, and shakes his head a little as he concludes, "Oh."

"Just so," Peggy says, gently squeezing his fingers, and his smile rises, lopsided and shaky at first, then firming and spreading across his face. She's already smiling back, and for a moment they stand there together, hands joined, breathing in counterpoint. She could so easily grow used to this harmony.

Steve draws a deeper breath, smile unfading, and says, "Please don't be angry with Lorraine either," and Peggy's heart lifts on another laugh.

But even so she aches; it takes her a moment of sifting her own emotions to tell Steve honestly, "I'm not." Still, it's more sweet than bitter to continue, "I can't fault her taste," to watch his lashes swing down as his cheeks pinken. "Furthermore, I can't forgive you that kiss -- " Steve blanches, looking up with alarmed blue eyes, and Peggy's frustration whiplashes into a sharp headshake. "No, not that, what I mean is, it's not a misdeed for me to forgive. I shouldn't -- I wish I hadn't been angry. We've made no promises to each other."

Now Steve squeezes her hands as he considers her for an unblinking moment, his gaze palpable as sunlight. "But I'd like to," he tells her, and dizzying excitement pushes the air from Peggy's lungs. "May I, may I kiss you, Peggy Carter?"

Her name sounds so sweet in his mouth all her sinews tense to launch her upon him, so that she trembles with effortful restraint. She allows herself a composed nod, and Steve leans in, his eyes darkening under lowering lids, and brushes his lips feather-lightly along the rise of her cheek.

Peggy stands for one more heartbeat, Steve's shoulder broad before her eyes, his lips tender on her skin. Then she reaches up, laying her hand on his velvety cheek to turn his face, and kisses him full on the mouth.

His plush lips yield to her push, he trembles against her mouth and rumbles up into an open-throated moan, heat washes through her, through both of them as he leans in to meet her press for press. His hands fold around hers into a protective little box until she pulls free, grasps his wrists and hauls his arms around her waist, growling low in her throat as she winds her arms around his neck and kisses him unreservedly. Steve opens to her, gasping and undefended, and she lunges up onto her toes, pulling him down to her, diving into the tender heat of his mouth. He tightens his arms across her back to support her, not restrain her, he moans again under her questing tongue as his tangles with hers, meeting her stroke for stroke. Rather than pushing against her he follows her every move as she presses her chest to his and delves further into the kiss, and Peggy realizes intoxicatingly that Steve will entirely follow her in this dance.

The thought surges as hot through her blood as the feel of his broad shoulders beneath her hands and his thighs trembling against hers. Steve is offering himself in this kiss, and Peggy could do as she wishes with him. She could push him to his knees and lean over him, she could shove him around onto her cot and climb onto him, she could --

\-- face the fanged rumors when Captain Rogers is seen stumbling from her quarters tomorrow morning, could risk being cashiered for moral laxity, perhaps carrying a child beneath her heart, certainly as Steve fights hundreds of miles away without her help. She could lose everything she's worked for. Her blood pounds that having Steve would be worth it, but he wouldn't agree, and she knows she knows better.

The moment Peggy stills Steve shudders to a halt, humming sharply with concern. Peggy shakes her head as she pulls away, and for a moment all she can see is his mouth, pink and gleaming wet, before she can drag her eyes up to his. "Oh," he puffs, and smiles wide, but a line crinkles between his eyebrows. "Are you -- was that --"

"A man of many talents, you are," she assures him, helplessly smiling back. "But we -- I --"

She's caught his stammers, so it's fortunate he understands her. "Yeah," he murmurs, looking down again, his arms tensing across her back before he peels them away. She unwinds hers from behind his neck, and their hands meet beneath her ribs, his bracketing her waist, hers wrapped around his wrists. "I get it. I told Bucky --"

He flushes red then, and Peggy's unsurprised laugh bubbles out of her as he peers up at her exactly as he did from behind his new shield. "And what does your Sergeant Barnes think?" she asks, distinctly anticipating an upcoming chat with the man himself.

"Bucky?" Steve smiles a little, sideways and self-aware as he answers more clearly with his anxious gaze than the redundant, "He knows I'm here." This she expected from the first time Steve mentioned his best friend in all the world, and she smiles reassuringly, drawing him to continue. "I mean, he approves of you."

As ever, Steve's earnestness fills her with unexpected, undeniable delight. "I have his approval!" Peggy can't help teasing, "Do I have yours?"

Steve's smile spreads to a sweet shining grin. "Ever since you punched Hodges."

Peggy has to kiss him again for that, has to feel his chuckle tingle her lips and press her smile to his. She pulls herself back just far enough to murmur, "I should let you go before I do something stupid," and he smiles into kissing her, pulling her up onto her toes.

For just a moment, though; then he steps away, prying his fingers off her waist, she uncurls her hands from his wrists, and they face each other, drawing steadying breaths in unison. Steve looks at ease now, softly smiling, but some tilt to his eyebrows reminds Peggy of his wide eyes above the rim of his shield, prompting her to say, "While we're apologizing…" his eyebrows lift as she marshals her words, as she thinks back. She'd set out to remind him and Stark of her actual skills, and they'd looked suitably impressed, but even so… "I'm sorry for shooting at you without warning."

"Without _warning_ ," Steve echoes, and grins wide, and it is all Peggy can do not to fling herself across the infinite foot of space between them. "Actually, it was a pretty impressive sight, staring down the barrel of Agent Carter's gun. And we did need to test out my shield."

"You reckless creature," Peggy says, and lets herself leap with her heart's rise, lets Steve catch her up for one more sweet heated kiss before she pushes her hands against his chest and he sets her down. "Breakfast, 0630?"

"Yes, ma'am." Steve salutes her, opening the door behind himself. "Sleep well, Peggy."

"Goodnight, Steve." Peggy watches him let himself out, and takes another deep steadying breath as she stands where he stood. Then she spins and throws herself onto her cot, boots and all, burying her heated face in the thin pillows to stifle her shriek of joy.

\----V----

It's like there's no floor beneath Steve's feet. Is this what walking on air feels like? Peggy's smiling face shines bright in his memory, the rhythm of her heartbeat sings through his blood, his limbs swing as if he could even dance down the hallway on an invisible cloud of relieved happiness. Peggy's not mad at him anymore, she's so much more than simply not mad, and Steve allows himself one celebratory spin, manages not to crash into the wall, and forces himself to tiptoe the last several steps, to ease the door's sticky lock open as quietly as he can.

Light spills out as Steve finds Bucky's cot empty and his own full of shirtless Bucky, lying prone and bouncing a red rubber ball off the ceiling. Steve shuts the door behind him and Bucky catches the ball as he turns to look, leaving his arm extended, muscles in relief, posed a moment for Steve to draw later; the corner of his mouth quirks before he purses it severely, and Steve pulls his tingling lips into as flat a line as he can manage, returning stare for stare.

"C'mon, Rogers," Bucky lectures, folding his arm down and pushing himself up on his opposite elbow, "don't tell me --"

Steve squares his shoulders, playing at being insulted. "Shut it, Barnes, I went and apologized just like I said I would." Bucky's eyebrow tilts up over his expectant look, and Steve holds out a pitifully few seconds before he blurts, "Peggy forgave me. She kissed me. We're all right again, and more."

Bucky just rolls his eyes rather than spelling out that he thinks Steve should still be in Peggy's quarters, in her bed, which saves Steve the bother of explaining that he understands why Peggy sent him away, that it wasn't because she didn't want him. But Bucky's mouth twitches at both corners, and by the time he's looking at Steve again he's already relaxing into a great big proud grin that makes Steve's cheeks heat. "Well, then," Bucky says, lifting the blanket invitingly, showing off a stripe of bare hip and thigh as he pats the cot beside him, "Get in and tell me all about it."

"Sure it's not above your pay grade?" Even as he teases Steve peels out of his jacket, and Bucky just tucks his hands behind his head and watches, his eyes the dark warm blue of summer twilight. Steve knows he's grinning stupidly, but he can't stop, he doesn't want to, nor need to. It felt good to be kissed at all, but it felt so much better to kiss Peggy for the first time, and the second and the third, knowing now they won't be the last. And it feels so good to shuck off his military duds and turn off the light, to climb into bed beside Bucky just like always, pressing skin to warm solid skin as he murmurs about the astounding dame he's fallen for and how amazing it is that she's sweet on him right back.


End file.
